March 22 Readers' letters: Haney rightly identifies fallacies of eliminating elected school boards

From Mercury News readers

Posted:
03/20/2014 12:40:53 PM PDT

Updated:
03/20/2014 12:40:54 PM PDT

Charter school boards have bad track record

The charter school vs. traditional public school debate recently reached another crescendo with Reed Hastings' provocative call to eliminate elected school boards. But San Francisco Unified School District board member Matt Haney's opinion piece in support of elected boards (Opinion, March 16) rightly identifies the fallacies in Hastings' position.

Charter school boards and management engage in improper conduct; they are demonstrably worse than elected boards accountable to the public. The scrutiny of massive financial mismanagement at American Indian Charter Schools in Oakland, the repeated efforts of Rocketship to co-opt the Santa Clara County Office of Education to misuse zoning laws -- rejected by the courts, and Brown Act violations and unconstitutional admissions practices (according to SCCOE) at Bullis Charter School in Los Altos are just the tip of the iceberg.

When taxpayer money and public facilities are at stake, we should be skeptical of any proposal to replace elected, accountable school boards with unelected boards accountable to no one.

Noah D. Mesel

Director Huttlinger Alliance for Education Los Altos

Public information empowers electorate

March 16-22 is Sunshine Week, an annual nationwide discussion about the importance of access to public information and what it means to each of us and to our community. It is a time to remember the important role that we have in keeping our towns healthy, vibrant and strong.

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We all have the right to know what our government is doing -- both its successes and failures. Exercising our right to know gives us -- the public -- power. It allows us to hold elected officials accountable on Election Day and beyond.

For decades, members of the League of Women Voters have acted as government watchdogs at the federal, state and local levels. We monitor Fremont, Newark and Union City's budgets, watch city council and other public board meetings such as Washington Township Hospital and Ohlone College, and work to get all members of the community out to vote. We invite all of you to join us by making your voice heard on Election Day and throughout the year.

Carolyn Hedgecock and Sam Neeman

Co-Presidents League of Women Voters Fremont, Newark and Union City

Transgender athlete deserves dignity

It is very upsetting to hear that organizations still refuse to recognize the gender that a transgender person identifies with. This is something that happens much too often. A transgender person, or anyone else of the LGBTQ community, for that matter, cannot control his or her gender identification any more than a straight person can. Too many of us do not know the truth about LGBTQ issues and simply judge based off stereotypes and stories. CrossFit must realize that its argument for banning a transgender athlete from competing as a woman is invalid because it is using false information to do so. It must acknowledge the facts instead of intensifying the problem and upholding the misleading ideas society has of transgender individuals.

Fewer neighbor farmers will survive this year in Merced County. One of my neighbors has 140 acres of almonds and has no (zero) irrigation water. Another has pulled up 200 acres of mature almond trees.

Singh writes farmers have not paid their fair share for developing a water source. My position: Our ranch in Merced County has historic water rights dating to pre-1914. Our irrigation district was established with 100 percent funding by the farmers that bought into it. Therefore, we should have sufficient water from San Joaquin River for our crops this year. Yet we'll get less than 40 percent of 2013, as it stands right now. Our historic water rights are being trampled.

Singh writes farmers have no incentive to be efficient. I have known some in the past; they went bankrupt and became salesmen.

Joseph Mosko

Owner, Worthington Ranch Gustine

Let's work together for equal opportunity

The principle of affirmative action ("Californian Asian-Americans show strength in blocking affirmative action revival," Page 1B, March 18) is outdated and is in need of review. Now is not the time to revisit old, unsuccessful policies, but rather a time to come together to create new solutions. As mentioned in the article, potentially pitting one ethnicity against the other in an effort to create equality is a disservice to our people. Minorities and majorities alike, from every walk of life, need to come together in this fight for equal access to higher education. California has the opportunity to set an example for the rest of the nation on how to diplomatically deal with issues surrounding affirmative action; this opportunity should not be wasted.

Hannah Wesolek-Greenson

Campbell

Time to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana

Regarding your March 17 editorial, not only should medical marijuana be legally regulated, but so should adult recreational use. The days when politicians can get away with confusing the drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant are coming to an end. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug cartels, prohibition is a grand success. The drug war distorts supply and demand dynamics so that big money grows on little trees.

If the goal is to deter use, marijuana prohibition is a catastrophic failure. The U.S. has almost double the rate of marijuana use as the Netherlands, where marijuana is legal. The criminalization of Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis has no basis in science. The war on marijuana consumers is a failed cultural inquisition, not an evidence-based public health campaign. Not just in Colorado and Washington but throughout the nation, it's time to stop the pointless arrests and instead tax legal marijuana.